Dell: It’s not about the music player
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Like a popular mayor declaring he’s not going to run for president after all, Dell has scrapped plans for a new MP3 player and subscription service, according to the Wall Street Journal. In fact, Dell says in a blog post, the company’s strategy ‘has never been about a music player.’ Glad we got that straightened out, but I actually liked the idea of Dell developing an inexpensive WiFi-enabled player that could tune in streams from a variety of sources. The secret sauce behind the rumored player was software from Zing, a Silicon Valley start-up that Dell acquired last year.
‘As we said a few months ago, our strategy focuses on content offerings and delivery platforms that mix Zing software, remote access and pre-configured media bundles across all of our devices, including licensing agreements with entertainment distributors,’ Jay Pinkert wrote on the Dell blog. What that’s meant so far is offering to preload new PCs with bundles of MP3s or DRM-encrusted movies for about half the price of individual downloads. That strikes me as a weak offer, especially considering how few options there are (you can’t build your own bundles, and there are only 14 packages of music or movies to choose from). Beyond that, what’s the no software breakthrough involved in planting some MP3s on a hard drive? What would be more interesting -- and where Dell appears to be going, although it wouldn’t say so today -- is if the Zing software became the connective tissue between pieces of each customer’s domain. In other words, the software would make it easy to access all your content (pictures, songs, videos or even subscription services) from any device, no matter where it might be stored.
For what it’s worth, I was a fan of the Sansa Connect player with Zing software, which originally worked with Yahoo’s subscription music service to deliver a nifty ‘any track, anywhere’ experience. (OK, make that an ‘any track in our limited collection, anywhere you can get free WiFi’ experience.) But the Connect became a lot less interesting after Yahoo’s music service folded, eliminating users’ ability to add songs or playlists to their collection wirelessly, impulsively and at no incremental cost. I cling to the belief that WiFi can turn an MP3 also-ran into a real iPod competitor, given the right back-end service to provide the content. The Slacker G2 is one interesting example, although it’s pricey and doesn’t have the marketing muscle needed to change how people think about music consumption. With the major labels becoming much more willing to experiment with ad-supported and freemium models, I think it’s just a matter of time before someone comes through with an offer that trumps the iPod’s approach (i.e. local storage and 99 cents per incremental track). But then, that could very well be Apple.
-- Jon Healey
Healey writes editorials for The Times’ Opinion Manufacturing Division.
